NewsForge: Fedora Core 3 (FC3), released last month as the successor to Red Hat's consumer-grade product that was discontinued a year ago, takes Linux to a whole new level.

Fedora is not a distribution aimed at the general consumer market, and it's hardly fair to compare it to commercial distros (as I once did). Fedora's intended audience is people who want to be somewhere between the leading edge and the bleeding edge: it's a test bed for the next release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Its developers try new things with every release, and they don't always work, but you get to work with the newest of the new stuff. Fedora is meant to be tinkered with and customized. It is meant to be pushed to the breaking point to find its weak areas. It has become an important proving ground for new technology. In addition, the Fedora Project's commitment to 100% free software means that there will always be certain goodies (such as MP3 capability) that users will have to obtain and install themselves.

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